The review of the current plan, published in 2001, is already years overdue. It fails to address the key issues of contaminant discharge into waterways from intensive dairy farming and other industries. It fails to address growing water allocation demand brought on by climate
change, impacts from oil and gas activities and protection of our
dwindling freshwater and wetland ecosystems.

The draft revised plan, while far from perfect, offers a platform for
improvements, such as requiring farm effluents to be discharged to land
rather than to waterways and completion of riparian planting and fencing
by 2020, although the proposed date is three years behind central government advice. Council should incorporate stakeholders’ inputs,
notably those already received from district councils, the District
Health Board, Fish and Game, iwi and others, to produce a proposed plan
for public notification by December as planned so that broad-based
public inputs can be brought in effectively.

The National Policy Statement (NPS) on Freshwater requires regional
councils to fully implement the NPS no later than the end of 2025.
Delaying the public notification of the proposed plan till 2020 suggests
that council is not serious about public inputs or making sure that
there is adequate time for its full implementation in accordance with
the NPS. Critically, the delay would also have serious implications on
a number of oil and gas activities which do not fall under the NPS but
urgently need to be better aligned with district council processes, asadvised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

“TRC are bowing to greedy industry demands over the real needs of our communities and the environment. We have less than 8% of our original wetlands left, which are the breeding grounds of many fish and birds and a natural control system for floods and droughts. 74% of our native freshwater fish, mussels and crayfish are already threatened with extinction and the world is losing 75 billion tonnes of soil worth US$400 billion dollars per year. People and the environment cannot afford to delay this crucial policy. We need to urgently tell TRC to stop bowing to short-sighted and destructive industries. Do not delay the Freshwater and Land Management Plan.” concluded Emily Bailey for
Climate Justice Taranaki.

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